


Lucid Dream

by Ajaxthegreat



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation, Soulmates, The one where They Don't Die, a lot of dreaming, of course, or rather the one where they die and then get to try again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-08 08:21:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12250605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ajaxthegreat/pseuds/Ajaxthegreat
Summary: In front of everyone, Levi falls to his knees and touches Erwin's forehead, kisses the side of his face, whispers,Please, don'tinto his ear. His eyes are the color of a hurricane.Erwin is so tired. Without understanding he says, "I'll find you."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys I've never written for this ship before but it's eating me alive so HERE.  
> This chapter can be read by itself if you care to skip the truly ridiculous amount of sex in chapter 2. I've split it up for those of you who don't want sexytimes. For anyone else, sexytimes are incoming in the next chapter.

It starts with a dream.

A nightmare, really - but nightmares are the only kinds of dreams Erwin has, so he doesn't think much of it.

It is dark, in the dream. It smells like sweat, and horses, and something he knows is blood without understanding how.

Erwin is climbing something, unable to fully open his eyes and look, scrambling to get to the top, chest bursting with urgency.

The smell of blood - like mud, almost, like iron and sickness - swells up in his chest until he feels like it's going to burst, and he finally reaches the top.

Corpses.

He's climbed a mountain of corpses.

From the top he looks out, sees nothing but fog and distant trees, and - _something impossibly huge moving in the distance like a man, sick, too big, too fast -_

He sits up in bed gasping, sweating, hands shaking. He cannot sleep the rest of the night, and sits in his office with all the lights on, thinking of giants.

His wife tells him he is dreaming in metaphors.

It felt so real, he says, sounding foolish even to himself. It felt so real. All those people.

She sets his coffee in front of him, tells him he's too stressed, tells him to forget the corpses.

He burns his tongue on his coffee to avoid saying _I put them there_.

He dreams, for months, of looming giants stumbling through the fog, and when he wakes he is inexplicably afraid.

The dreams slow eventually, and Erwin nearly forgets them.

He goes to work, teaches his students, reads his books, kisses his wife. The giants fade into the back of his mind until he begins to wonder if he imagined them.

The next time, he dreams of a man.

They say you only ever dream of people you know, distort their faces until they are unrecognizable, but Erwin is sure he has never known anyone like this.

The man is kneeling on the ground, and his hair is dark and wet in his eyes - spectacular, grey, furious, impossibly hard - and there is such savage violence in his expression that it robs Erwin of his breath.

Even when he wakes he can't breathe, and he sits up and presses shaking hands to his eyes with the distinct feeling the earth has shifted under him.

He tells no one, afraid the man will disappear from his memory, but the next night he dreams of him again: how fast he moves, the viciousness of his eyes, the poorly-contained violence of his hands.

For three days Erwin says nothing, dreams of nothing. But on the fourth day, he dreams of pale toes curling in pleasure and grey eyes and strong fingers in his hair; of the giants looming in the distance and the desperate, pressing fear of running out of time -

He gasps, sitting up in bed, shamefully hard and covered in sweat, and finds his wife with her back to him, breathing too fast to be asleep.

He sinks back into the covers, sheets sticking to his sweaty skin, and tries to still his shaking hands.

Back still to him, Marie says, "Who's Levi?"

Erwin feels a cold rush of shock at the name, at the truth of it. He hadn't known until now. Or he always had.

He shakes his head.

"I don't know anyone called - I don't know anyone by that name."

He has just learned the name and yet he knows he can't speak it without praying it, and Marie must not hear that.

"You sounded like you were -" she curls in on herself and her voice goes flat and quiet - "like you were in pain."

Erwin chokes out, "Nightmare," and can't speak anymore.

The name ruins him.

He dreams of Levi every night after that, as if knowing his name has invited him in, somehow. He learns him painfully, as if he is more than a construct of Erwin's mind, as if he is a real man. He learns what he looks like when he's worried, the tightening of his eyes when he looks at the giants in the distance. He learns how strong he is - deceptively strong, terrifyingly strong, how easily he protects himself. He learns how his voice cracks when he comes, how viciously he curses.

It leaks into Erwin's waking life, the dull heartache realization that Levi does not exist, and Erwin finds himself staring off more and more frequently, looking for monsters in the fog.

It is foolish, and he tries everything to make it stop: pills, alcohol, hypnosis, therapy.

Nothing works.

Marie goes to stay with her mother, unable to take the desperate, reverent tone of Erwin's voice when he says Levi's name in his sleep.

Erwin feels like he is losing his mind, and then the dreams shift.

The giants, the horses, the omnipresent smell of blood and under-the-fingernails feeling of constant anxiety, it all disappears. 

He knows this new dream is different right from the beginning. The world is different - less dangerous, less urgent. A different life. He knows this, somehow.  
He knows, too, that when he turns his head and opens his eyes, he will find Levi.

But he doesn't. He turns, reaches out an arm - just one, he just has one arm and somehow feels none of the alarm he should at this development - and the bed is empty. Huge, soft and indulgent and nothing like the bed in his other dreams, but empty.

A soft noise sounds from the doorway, and he looks up to find Levi there, wearing a shirt that is far too big for him - Erwin's, he knows, and the vicious grip the sight of it puts on his heart might kill him - and holding a mug of something in both hands. His hair is longer than before, his face softer. He seems... safer.

Erwin can hear the ocean outside, and the fog on the window tells him it is cold. Levi’s skin looks impossibly warm. His voice is the same as before when he says, "You look weird."

Erwin laughs and realizes with a terrible jolt that he is _here_ , in this dream, not just watching it. That he is _present_ in a way he has never been before.

Lucid dreaming, he remembers it being called.

Levi walks over to the edge of the bed, feet bare and utterly silent, and presents him with the mug.

Erwin smells coffee.

"For the heathen who doesn't like tea," Levi says, and the low, soft tone of his voice makes Erwin shiver. He takes the mug and their fingers brush.

The world shifts again, and Erwin has the distinct impression that it was not right until this moment. He is unbearably reluctant to move his hand off Levi’s.

Levi furrows his brows and says, “You look like something crawled up your ass.”

Erwin looks at the bedside table - theirs - and sees a pair of glasses he knows don't belong to him, a small, startlingly ornate pocketknife, and a pile of books.

The mug in his hands has a drawing of a game of hangman, unfinished, and written across the bottom in Levi’s careful, beautiful handwriting, is _This mug cost an arm and a leg_.

“Levi,” he says—  the first time he’s ever knowingly said it, and his stomach drops at the taste.

Levi’s permanently unamused expression lightens a little, lips curling up softly at the edges.

“You haven't called me that in a long time,” he says, and touches Erwin’s chest. “Been dreaming again?”

Erwin gasps himself awake then, alone in the dark of his own room, and feels the tilt of the earth like something apocalyptic.

He tries not to lose himself after that, but it becomes increasingly difficult to get out of bed and face a world that feels heartbreakingly empty without Levi.

Levi becomes so real that he feels more like a memory than a dream, and thoughts of him swallow Erwin's life.

He calls Marie, tells her he is afraid, that he doesn't understand what is happening. She tells him not to call anymore. He feels dangerously off-kilter, afraid to go to sleep and equally afraid to wake up.

Some of the dreams are lucid, some are not.

More than once he watches Levi die, in too many different ways and in too many different worlds, and always it plays through like a film that he is helpless to stop. Levi always says the same thing, every time.

 _I'll find you_.

The days after those dreams, Erwin drags himself up and vomits until he feels empty, and doesn't speak to anyone.

Other times he can reach out and touch Levi, can open his mouth and speak to him, and the tender moments of peace they share together make Erwin feel like everything in the waking world is ridiculously small, inconsequential.

He dreams of the house by the ocean often. The sky is fog-colored, the water some impossible blue gray that Erwin thinks only exists in the dream because of Levi's eyes. He sits with him on the porch and they watch the waves together, drinking tea (coffee, in Erwin's case) and occasionally brushing fingertips over the backs of each other's hands. Erwin does not miss his arm at all.

Erwin finds that in most dreams, he is missing an arm up to the shoulder. When he is alone, the phantom pain cripples him - he still feels it when he wakes.

When he is with Levi, he feels nothing.

In the other dreams, he is usually missing his right arm, but in the one with the house on the ocean, it's his left. He looks over at the ring on Levi's left hand and a pang seizes his chest.

Levi puts the pocket knife in his hand, and Erwin can _feel_ him in it, knows instinctively how carefully he made it, knows Levi has given him this piece of his heart instead of the ring Erwin cannot wear.

He looks at Levi then, the sound of the waves deafening with a coming storm, and is seized with an urge to lay him down and fuck him right there on the porch, so he does.

Erwin begins to live only to dream. His life fades away, his friendships drifting into the background. Nothing feels real, waking or not.

One day nearly a year after the start, Erwin watches himself die.

The giants are back, and he's trying to stop his insides from spilling out his stomach, and the shock of it is so absolute that he feels no pain until Levi finds him.

In front of everyone, Levi falls to his knees and touches Erwin's forehead, kisses the side of his face, whispers, _Please, don't_ into his ear. His eyes are the color of a hurricane.

Erwin is so tired. Without understanding he says, "I'll find you." His eyes are heavy.

"I'm so tired, Levi."

Levi's hands shake. Erwin feels himself pulled under an enormous tide, and he is grateful. Finally, he can rest.  

He wakes with an eerie sense of calm and loneliness, thinks of a lake in winter, and does not get up for nearly three hours.

When he does, he packs one bag, buys a plane ticket, and flies to Paris. He tells no one.

It is not until he is in the air, watching the curve of the earth under the ocean that he realizes he has no idea what he's doing.

He feels an itch under his skin since his death, a strange desire to be _free_ , and upon setting foot in Paris he breathes easy for the first time in weeks.  

He has an apartment in the Latin Quarter, one he hasn't visited in nearly two years, but his feet take him there easily and he finds it in good working order.

The itch returns just under his shoulder blades that evening, and so Erwin goes for a walk.

The city is quiet, close in a way he has forgotten, old and beautiful and, in places, shockingly poor.

He walks down to the Seine, watches the way the sky goes from pink to purple to deep, pollution-choked blue, and tries not to think of the look on Levi's face when he'd watched Erwin die.

He tells himself it's not real for the thousandth time, but he doesn't really believe it anymore. By the time he walks up the stairs and back into the city, his thoughts are so consumed by Levi that he runs straight into someone.

An angry, measured voice says in vicious French, " _Va t’faire foutre, connard_ " and the sound of it, the familiarity of that voice, sends a shockwave of awe through Erwin's body all the way to his toes.

He's speaking before he even meets the angry gray eyes.

"Levi?"

“Shit, that’s an old name.”

The accent is new, French, but the low, even voice is unmistakable. Erwin fears he will fall to his knees at Levi’s feet.

Levi is leaning against a brick wall, half hidden in the shadows of a streetlight, and Erwin can see the tattoos on his hands. One of his ears is inside out, swollen, like a fossilized balloon. He has barely looked at Erwin once.

“If you are going to stare, make yourself useful, yeah?” he says, and Erwin did not think the sound of his voice could get more beautiful until he heard it rounded out like this. “ _T’as pas une clope?”_

Erwin raises his eyebrows. His fingers are numb. He doesn’t know what to do, so he just says, “Um. Excuse me?”

“A cigarette.”

Erwin’s ears are ringing. Levi’s hair is shorter this time, still just as dark, and there is a tattoo on the side of his neck that Erwin desperately wants to set his teeth against.  

Instead he says, “Uh, no. No, I’m sorry.”

Levi seems to finally look at him then. He takes a step into the streetlight and narrows his eyes. Erwin can’t look away.

There is a quiet intake of breath and Levi’s mouth opens, just the smallest bit. He leans heavily back against the wall and puts his hands in his hair. Erwin says nothing. He is trapped, frozen, completely at Levi’s mercy.

Levi is staring at Erwin’s right arm, hands still in his hair.

“Levi –”

“ _La ferme,_ Erwin _.”_

At the sound of his name Erwin’s knees actually _do_ give out, and he leans his hands against the wall next to Levi. It takes _everything_ in him not to press his face into Levi’s neck: he’s here, he’s _real_ and he’s here -

“I don’t – Levi, I’m sorry, I don’t know what that –”

“Shut the _fuck_ up, it means just shut the fuck up,” Levi hisses, still staring at Erwin’s arm instead of his face. “I – I need to. Think.”

Erwin waits, steals glances at the side of Levi’s face while he stares off into space, tries not to move into him, tries so hard not to collapse at his feet and wrap his arms around Levi’s legs and _beg him_ never to leave.

Finally, finally, Levi turns to face him.

“You are real.”

Erwin huffs out a breath, halfway between a laugh and a sigh, so deeply shocked at every part of this that he can hardly speak. He nods.

“Every night,” Levi starts, then makes an aborted movement in Erwin’s direction and then leans back against the wall, “Every night I watch you die.”

Erwin’s heart, so close to breaking for so long, cracks straight down the middle.

“You-”

But Levi cuts him off, doesn’t seem to be able to stop talking, eyes wide on Erwin’s arm like he’s waiting for it to disappear.

“So many different ways, you die,” Levi says. Erwin is still, somehow, more shocked by the accent than by the fact that Levi is _here_ , alive, real and in front of his eyes. “But always, always you say –”

“I’ll find you.”

Levi’s eyes finally meet his at that, something horrifically sad but tentatively hopeful in them. He nods.

Erwin shakes his head in disbelief. “You – you say the same.”

Levi looks away and murmurs, “ _Putain,”_ under his breath. Erwin doesn’t need that one translated; Levi’s tone is clear.

He scratches behind the cauliflowered ear and looks down, then back up at Erwin hesitantly. “Do you – when you dream, are – are we –”

“Yes,” Erwin says, trying not to sound too desperate. “Yes.”

Levi’s proximity is like a bolt of lightning, like a magnet. Every nerve in Erwin’s body is aching for him.

Levi nods, licks his lips. Erwin can smell the leather of his jacket when he takes a single step closer, and he wonders if this is what dying feels like.

Erwin is afraid to move, so he turns very slowly and leans both shoulders against the wall. Makes no move in Levi's direction.

Levi curses again, so softly Erwin does not hear, and then he moves so fast Erwin barely sees it. His hands are on Erwin's chest, curling into fists over his jacket, shaking slightly, and he ducks his head to press his forehead to Erwin's shoulder.

Erwin remembers a dream, one in the cabin by the ocean, where Levi had come home and buried his face in Erwin's shoulder just like this, put shaking hands on Erwin's belt and said _Please, I need_ -

Erwin cannot stop what he does next.

He wraps both arms around Levi's body so tightly it makes Levi hiccup into his shoulder, splays a hand across the small of Levi's back and buries the other in Levi's hair, cradling the back of his head. His chest feels so tight he isn't sure he can breathe, and he turns his face into Levi's hair and takes one deep, shuddering breath.

Levi smells achingly familiar; and a pang of nostalgic melancholy shakes Erwin all the way to his toes.

He could have had this, Levi was real and they - they'd wasted so much time -

He cannot believe this, that this is _real_ , that he's awake -

"Levi," he says, with such naked reverence and adoration that he nearly feels himself blush. He's never felt so vulnerable.

Levi shakes his head, perhaps trying to put some distance between them, but pressed against Erwin as he is, the motion is almost frightening in its intimacy. He nudges the collar of Erwin’s jacket away so his lips are pressed against the skin of Erwin’s neck when he says, “You always die.”

“No,” Erwin says, chest seized tight with some startling emotion, “Not this time.”

Then Levi is pressing him hard into the brick until his shoulder blades ache, running his hands over Erwin’s shoulders, down his arms, like he’s memorizing every inch of him. His lips brush Erwin’s throat again and he says quietly, desperately, “Don’t. Die.”

Erwin brings shaking hands to Levi’s face, runs fingers through his hair and watches the infinitesimal flutter of his eyelashes. He’s trying _so_ hard not to close his eyes, not to lean into Erwin’s hands, Erwin can _feel_ it in the tension of Levi’s whole body.

“I won’t,” Erwin says, voice a hoarse whisper. He knows this promise is impossible to keep, but he would kill the laws of the known universe for Levi. He _has_ killed the laws of the known universe for Levi.

“I won’t.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which two people struggle not to tell each other everything about themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh basically just sex and reincarnation flashbacks and feelings

Levi moves frighteningly strong hands up his chest and grips two fistfuls of Erwin’s shirt, drags him down and kisses him like the world is coming to an end.

It is – in fact, they all are. For now.

The Levi in his worst dreams always tastes like blood, and fear. He kisses Erwin, touches him, with his eyes always open - peering out the window for giants in the fog. That Levi almost never kisses him on the mouth, as if this will stop the inevitability of their deaths, as if being deprived the taste of Levi’s tongue will stop Erwin from literally putting his  _ insides  _ in Levi’s hands.

The Levi in the cabin by the ocean kisses him lazily, methodically, with a sort of quiet possessiveness that sears the insides of Erwin’s ribs. He tastes like toothpaste and Earl Grey, and always licks his lips before licking Erwin’s. He has no scars and smiles into the kiss, sometimes. His body is soft in places, and he pants Erwin’s name against the fog of the frozen window until it sounds like a prayer.

This Levi tastes like cigarette smoke and chocolate, and kisses him desperately, feverishly, like he’s been waiting his whole life for it. He crushes Erwin against the wall until he can feel bruises forming against his shoulder blades, fists the front of Erwin’s shirt so hard he can hear thread snapping. His teeth are sharp,  _ starving _ on Erwin’s lip, his jaw, the frantic pulse of his throat. 

Their bodies are pressed together from their knees to their mouths, and Erwin can feel Levi’s heartbeat in every cell of his own body.

He has never felt anything like this, and yet he knows he has. Levi’s body is at once achingly familiar and magnetically uncharted, and Erwin is seized with the paralyzing thought of  _ this is what his skin feels like  _ and  _ finally, finally _ . It is as if he is making an earth-shattering new discovery, but also as if a painfully missing piece of the universe has finally been returned. 

Levi gets a hand into Erwin’s hair and pulls  _ hard _ , sinks his teeth into the new exposed skin of his throat and Erwin can’t help the groan that escapes him then.

He gets his hands under Levi’s jacket, under his shirt, and the shock of his hot skin against Erwin’s palms makes him groan again.

At the not-so-gentle scrape of Erwin's fingernails down his shoulder blades Levi hisses out a litany of curses in French that Erwin wishes desperately he could understand. 

He pushes his nose into the soft spot of Levi's neck under his ear and just stays there, breathing him in. 

Levi shakes. "Come  _ on _ ."

Before he knows what he's doing Erwin has his hands on Levi's legs, just under his ass, and he's flipping their positions, lifting Levi up and slamming him into the brick wall. Levi wraps his legs around Erwin's waist and huffs a laugh, rolling his eyes. The effect is lost by the blush on Levi's cheeks, the frantic beating of his heart, the way he's gasping every breath like he's running a marathon. 

"Come on," he says again, voice rough and impatient in that way it always is.

_ Always _ . 

Erwin slows, then, realizing the enormity of the situation, of how they could have gone their entire lives without meeting, of how he could have had nothing but those dreams for his whole life. Again, he is floored by the realization that Levi is in front of him, living, breathing. Real. 

And currently entertaining an expression torn endearingly between being nervous and being irritated. 

"Erwin."

His voice lilts over Erwin's name in that familiar, unfamiliar way and Erwin remembers how in one of their lives, Levi smiled every single time he said it. He remembers how in another, Levi seemed reluctant to say it at all, like he was afraid of the power it would have over him.  How in another Levi whispered his name only in the dark, only against Erwin's skin, sweat-slick and hot, only when he was sure Erwin could not see him saying it, only when the constant threat of death and unkept promises seemed escapable. 

" _ Erwin _ ." 

Levi's eyes are wary, a little self-conscious, confused and irritated. Erwin squeezes his eyes shut and rests his head on Levi's shoulder. He's still holding him up against the wall. 

"Sorry," he murmurs into Levi's skin, into the warm leather and smoke smell of his jacket. "Remembering, I think."

"Other drea-"

"Yes."

Levi's legs around him are immovable. He scoots himself a couple inches higher on the wall until he's looking down at Erwin, a little. Erwin looks up at him and smiles; can't help it. 

_ Alive, you're alive _ -

He remembers being young, so young. Barely twenty. He remembers knowing everything. He remembers showing up at the cottage by the ocean to find a man there, younger than him even, one he had been waiting for his whole life. He remembers what the man had said -  _ You’re alive, you’re alive.  _ He remembers what he had said to him. 

_ Levi, I did it. I found you. _

Now, in the alley, Erwin suddenly cannot survive without his hands on Levi. He wants him impossibly closer, wants to crush their bodies together, wants to devour him. He slides his hands under Levi's ass and holds him against the wall while he sinks to his knees. 

Levi curses, in English, and looks frantically around at the empty street before settling his knees over Erwin's shoulders. He's still pressed into the wall. Erwin is the only thing holding him up. 

Levi scrambles to get his cock out, Erwin's hands still steady under his legs. He unbuttons his jeans and shoves them just far down enough that Erwin can watch the beautiful dip of the muscles of his hips, the dark hair and the flushed head of his -  _ perfect, god, gorgeous-  _

Somehow in all his dreams Erwin has never gotten to just  _ look _ like this, and Levi's already leaking all over his own knuckles, squirming with the way Erwin is watching him. 

" _ Erwin _ -"

He doesn't hesitate after that, just grips Levi hard in both hands and pulls his ass forward, holding him inescapably close and taking his cock all the way down his throat. 

"Oh, fuck."

The English surprises him, but the  _ tone _ of it - filthy, shocked, vulnerable - sears Erwin open. If he weren't already on his knees -

But he is. And the taste of Levi on his tongue, the warmth and weight of him, the certainty of him, has him painfully hard and desperate, panting through his nose and bruising Levi's skin with his hands. 

Levi's hands go to Erwin's shoulders, then one winds into his hair and Levi moans, open and shamelessly loud. 

" _ Hè _ !"

Erwin freezes at the unfamiliar voice, but Levi's fingers tighten in his hair, pulling him closer, pushing his cock further down Erwin's throat and  _ fuck, someone is going to see them and they're going to see Levi here  _ choking _ him with his- _

Erwin is so overwhelmed at this startlingly possessive display that he sags, spine going soft and liquid, and he moans dizzily around Levi's cock. 

Levi's fingers tighten further and he curses again, quiet and vicious. 

Out of the corner of his eye Erwin sees the stranger coming closer and his heart is hammering in his chest. Levi's cock is still stuffed down his throat, inescapably hard. 

The stranger yells something else in French, stops, curses, then says, "Ackerman?"

Levi keeps one hand on the back of Erwin's head and makes an uninterested noise of assent. Erwin is so dizzy he doesn't know which way is up. His ears are ringing. He's soft and pliant in Levi's hands, tongue sweeping along the underside of Levi's cock like there isn't a person standing right next to them. 

He tries not to moan again, can feel it building in the back of his throat, where Levi's cock still is. 

_ Jesus fucking Christ.  _

"Officer," Levi says in English, tone overly casual like Erwin isn't on his knees in the dirt at his feet, like Erwin isn't holding all his weight up against the wall. Like his  _ cock _ isn't still in Erwin’s  _ mouth. _

The officer has a crass British accent when he says, "Fuck, Ackerman, what have I told you about public indecency?"

Levi takes a hand off Erwin's head to wave the officer away, and Erwin is starting to see spots. Levi's cock is still just as hard as before, maybe even  _ more _ so for this little interruption, and it is pressed unrelentingly against the soft part of the back of his throat. He moans at the hot rush of adrenaline and oxygen deprivation, and Levi finally pulls him off. 

Erwin takes a wet, shuddering breath, feeling strangely bereft.

"You okay?" Levi asks, voice soft.

Erwin can't speak, can barely gasp against the skin of Levi's hip. He is buzzing with adoration and endorphins and desperation. He nods. 

The corner of Levi's mouth curls up and he touches Erwin's jaw, then looks back at the officer. Erwin is still holding him up, though at this point it's more like Levi is sitting on Erwin's shoulders. 

"Can I help you?" he asks the cop, still in English. They must know each other fairly well. The cop doesn't even glance at Levi's cock, wet and flushed and astoundingly hard against Erwin's cheek. 

"Cut this shit out, Ackerman. Jesus."

"Sure, officer."

"I'm  _ serious _ , I'll -"

"Arrest me," Levi drawls, winks down at Erwin. Erwin can do nothing but gaze up at him, knees in the dirt. His hands are still holding Levi's hips. "Right."

Erwin deliriously wonders why they're speaking English to each other, but the thought sort of passes in and out of his head without sticking to anything. Levi tastes  _ so good _ , clean and warm, and he smells like soap under his clothes. 

Erwin wants him desperately, feverishly. He noses at Levi's cock again, still shockingly half-hard despite the conversation. Levi hisses and huffs a laugh, tugging briefly on Erwin's hair. 

" _ Wait _ ,” he murmurs. His voice is impossibly dark. 

Levi eases his legs off Erwin's shoulders and straightens up, tucks his cock barely into his pants - Erwin can still see the head of it, and the sharp lines of his stomach, and a bruise against one hip from Erwin's fingers earlier -

"Arrest me, or leave." Levi's accent is thicker now, everything about him a touch slower, softer. Erwin wants to melt.  _ He _ did that. "You can't watch this time. This one is mine." 

_ Yours _ -

Someone makes a wounded animal sort of sound, and at the uncomfortable way the officer clears his throat Erwin realizes it was himself. Levi shushes him and runs a hand through his hair. 

He can't help closing his eyes at that, at the quiet affection in Levi's face. He is still kneeling, and Levi puts a hand on his shoulder when he turns to face the officer.

The officer is looking at Erwin with a strangely curious expression on his face, as if Levi's behavior toward Erwin is confusing to him. 

He takes a step forward, actually reaches his hand out - 

The officer's hand closes on Levi's arm and he says something low, something in French, and Erwin does not understand but doesn't like it. 

He is standing before his brain processes its movement, all his warm syrupy affection pushed back in favor of  _ You do not touch my Levi.   _

The officer's eyes go comically wide when he sees how  _ big _ Erwin is, both eyebrows raising. Levi just looks, bites his lip shamelessly as his eyes follow the lines of Erwin's legs up to his chest. The corner of his mouth curls up. 

The officer takes his hand off Levi's arm and steps back, says in his London accent, "Hey take it easy, yeah?"

Erwin says nothing, folds his arms and stands in front of Levi. He can still feel the impossible, magnetic pull of him at his back. He can still taste him, and he misses it so much it hurts. His knees ache. His cock aches. His  _ heart _ aches. 

How dare this man deprive him of touching Levi.  

He unfolds his arms and curls his hands into fists before Levi steps in, taking one of Erwin's hands in both of his and shushing him. 

"Let it go, Erwin."

The officer looks at Levi again, eyes going briefly to his obscenely unbuttoned pants before snapping back up to his face. He gestures to Erwin with an incredulous look on his face and says, "This guy? Really?"

Levi rolls his eyes. 

Erwin finally finds his voice, rough from the abuse to his throat (and his cock twitches at the thought of it, again), and says, "Don't touch him again."

He looks at the officer for a long time, sure his point is clear. Erwin has noticed the tone of his voice when he talks to Levi, the intimacy of his body language.

He  _ knows _ him. 

Erwin stares, stomach churning with possessiveness.  _ Don't touch him again. _

The officer looks strangely hurt for a moment, then clenches his jaw and looks at Levi. 

"Next time, I'm arresting you, Ackerman."

Levi flips him off. 

Erwin glares at the man's retreating back. 

"Come on," Levi says, grabbing his hand and pulling him into a doorway a few feet away. "I live close."

Erwin follows Levi up a narrow stairway. He looks around. 

"You live above a boxing gym?" He asks.

Levi throws him a look over his shoulder, hand going to the doorknob. 

"Of course," he says, like Erwin is an idiot. "I own it."

He opens the door and Erwin follows him inside, then immediately draws up short. 

The house smells like Levi. The sounds of the city drift in, softened by the windows. It is different from the cottage by the ocean, which has pieces of both of them scattered all over it almost carelessly, and it is different from the barracks, which has nothing of either of them, except for their weapons. 

It is lived in, comfortable and small and unsurprisingly clean (and again, Erwin is shocked at how he  _ knows _ Levi, remembers details like his cleanliness as if he has always known them) with an entire wall of decorative knives and swords, and the rest of the walls bare. 

Next to the bed is a punching bag, and then a small bedside table with one book - Jean-Paul Sartre - and a strange turquoise stone that Erwin finds himself inexplicably drawn toward. 

He picks it up and feels something tug in the back of his mind like a memory, then turns to Levi. 

Levi is watching him with a startlingly intense expression, eyes on the stone in Erwin's hand. Before Erwin can say anything, Levi says, "I - I don't know why I bought that." 

It is warm in Erwin's hand now, and he rubs his thumb over it. Suddenly he thinks of the knife Levi made him in the cottage by the ocean, the turquoise on the handle, and of the tie he wore, in his worst dreams. 

This is  _ his _ . 

"I -" Erwin stops, heart in his throat. He swallows. "How long have you had this?"

Levi shrugs, casual affect ruined by the intensity of his eyes. He hardly blinks when he says, "Fifteen years. Maybe." 

Erwin feels like the ground is going to open up under his feet. He puts the stone back on the nightstand and crosses the apartment to Levi before he can say anything foolish, like  _ You slept next to me for fifteen years and I never knew _ or  _ I would move the Earth if you asked me to _ or  _ Your face is the only thing I ever want to see for the rest of all my lives _ -

This time when they kiss, Levi is gentle at first. His mouth is soft and warm, his teeth barely graze the bottom of Erwin's lip, and Erwin wants to melt into him until he ceases to exist. 

He doesn't stay gentle. He grips the back of Erwin's neck and pulls him down like he's angry, something like a growl in the back of his throat, fingers frighteningly strong against Erwin's neck and fisted in the front of his shirt. 

The house is so quiet it feels like a dream, and the thought that it might be one makes Erwin so dizzy with fear that he pulls away, hands on Levi's solid chest. 

"Levi -"

"I know," he says, eyes screwed shut. He rests his forehead against Erwin's chest and his hair smells so good, like tea and clean soap. 

They stand like that for a long time. Erwin is afraid to ask the question, but equally afraid not to. 

_ What if we just haven't woken up yet? _

Levi's hands curl into fists at Erwin's shoulders and he finally looks up at him. "This is real," he says, and his expression is so sure that Erwin lets out a long breath. 

"Not a dream," Erwin says against Levi's hair, so softly the words hardly even come out. Levi's shaking fist pounds against Erwin's chest three times, like knocking on a door, and Erwin feels his heartbeat adjusting to it.  

Levi looks up at him. "Not a dream."

Erwin takes a breath. 

“Okay.”

Levi makes a noise of protest as Erwin picks him up and throws him onto the bed. 

"Don't  _ throw _ me," he hisses, but he's already hard again - Erwin can see it. 

Erwin grins and kisses him again, settles his whole body over him and presses him into the mattress like he's afraid he's going to disappear. He can feel Levi's lips curl up against his and desperately wants to see it - that smile, the one that's so hard to coax out of him - but there will be time for that later. 

Levi pulls back to take his shirt off and throw it into the corner, and Erwin is struck utterly silent by the lines of his naked chest. He is so  _ solid _ , so unbelievably strong, scarred and pale and strikingly beautiful. His tattoos are stark black against his white skin. Erwin's mouth is open. Levi raises his eyebrows and then rolls his eyes before reaching for Erwin's shirt, muttering something like, "Do everything myself."

It's strange how easy it is for them, the rhythm they settle into, and Erwin's got two lube-slick fingers inside Levi before he fully registers what's happening. The gravity of it hits him in the stomach and he bites Levi's jaw, his throat, the curve of his shoulder so hard he feels Levi shudder under him. He wants to devour him until there is nothing left of either of them, the desire to sink his whole  _ soul _ into Levi almost overwhelming. 

_ Mine _ , he thinks when he sets his teeth on Levi's shoulder, when he drags his tongue over the pounding heartbeat in his neck, and he adds another finger. 

Levi's knuckles crack from how hard he twists his hands in the sheets, one arm over his face like he wants to hide it. He's cursing softly, dark hair damp with sweat at his temples. Erwin kisses his hairline and Levi sucks in a huge shaking breath. 

"Erwin-"

Someone is making soft little broken noises, clearly overwhelmed and Erwin thinks it's Levi until he speaks and Erwin realizes it's him. 

He's whimpering into Levi's neck with three fingers inside him, so overcome with affection and desperation that he's just repeating  _ Levi, Levi  _ into the wet skin of Levi's shoulder. 

Levi finally moves his arm and looks Erwin full in the face and Erwin feels himself breaking. 

His eyes are wet at the corners, dark and terribly beautiful, pupils swallowing up all the little silver pieces in his irises. There's a flush over his cheeks and the top of his nose that Erwin has never seen before, can't even remember dreaming about, and he reaches up to touch it with his other hand. Levi's skin is so hot under his fingers that it makes Erwin's hands shake. 

Eyes still dark and wet on his face, Levi says Erwin's name again and Erwin wants to collapse - all his muscles threaten to give out at once. He's never been so overwhelmed in his life. 

All the sudden he sees something else, like a waking dream: 

Levi, scars crisscrossing his body in long heartbreaking lines, with his fist shoved in his mouth in the barracks, trying to stay quiet while Erwin pushes two fingers inside him. The candles are low, the moon a barely-visible sliver outside. One of them will die tomorrow. They both know this. Still, Levi turns his face into the crook of his arm when Erwin bends to kiss him. 

Erwin gasps and sees something else: himself, kneeling on the ground at Levi's feet, whole body shaking while Levi just looks at him.  Outside there is a storm rolling off the ocean, and it hits the window at the same time Levi pulls Erwin's hair. Erwin can  _ taste _ the desperation to please him in the back of his throat, and curled over Levi in the apartment in Paris he shakes with it. He can hear the storm-swollen waves out the window. 

He sees flashes of memory, wide awake, brighter than a dream. Levi, pressing kisses to his hair with four fingers inside him; Levi, covered in blood and whispering prayers against the skin of Erwin's neck; Levi, hair grey at the temples, sinking down onto Erwin lazy and slow and  _ laughing _ breathlessly - as if all their lives are meeting at this one point of contact, as if they are fucking each other across time and space and the entire multiverse. 

Erwin squeezes his eyes shut and says, "Do you feel that?"

Levi laughs. He  _ laughs _ , and Erwin wonders if he's already died because he can't possibly have this, he can't possibly have something this good. 

"Storm coming in," Levi murmurs, accent thick and voice dark, and outside the window in Paris the sky is clear. 

Erwin can still smell the rain on the ocean. 

Levi's foot nudges between Erwin's shoulder blades and his eyes slide closed when Erwin curls his fingers just right, mouth dropping open. 

Erwin has never, in his entire life, seen anything as painfully beautiful as this. 

Finally, muttered under his breath like it's being pulled out of him, Levi hisses, " _ Baise moi _ ," and Erwin doesn't need that one translated for him. 

His hands are shaking when he rolls the condom on and he uses altogether too much lube - Levi makes a face at the mess Erwin is leaving on his sheets. But it doesn't matter, after that, because he's pushing his way inside and Levi's eyes are screwed shut and his mouth is red and wet and wide open in astonishment, and Erwin's entire life was waiting for this.

It's unbearable, at first. Levi's body is so tight and so hot that Erwin feels himself losing his mind, and it is only Levi's little huff of annoyance that brings him back. 

"Come  _ on _ ," Levi says, breathless and flushed red all the way to his chest. Then he repeats, in English this time, "Fuck me."

Erwin takes another moment to quiet the spinning awareness in his mind, the convergence of too many lifetimes, the hundreds of hands on him (all Levi's) and the hundreds of mouths on him (all Levi's). He feels like he will break if he moves. 

Levi makes an impatient sound, hooks a foot over Erwin's back and plants the other one on the bed, and then he's flipping them with Erwin still inside him - when he settles on top of Erwin both of them gasp, breath punched of them out by the shift in position. 

"Too slow," Levi says, but his voice is so overwhelmed it sounds more like a desperate exhalation of breath than anything else. 

Erwin laughs, and the jolt it sends through both of them has him grabbing Levi's hips and gasping, arching up into him. 

Levi takes a moment to look at him, corners of his mouth curled up a little, and then puts one hand on Erwin's chest and the other in his hair. He pulls until Erwin's head is tilted back, then leans in and bites Erwin's throat. 

The angle makes Levi suck in a sharp breath against Erwin's skin, fingers tightening to painful in Erwin's hair. Erwin's cock is so hard he can hardly breathe, and the clench of Levi's body threatens to kill him. 

Levi's hand moves up Erwin's chest to the hollow of his throat and he presses hard, braces himself like that and rides Erwin like it's the only thing that matters in the world. 

Erwin can't breathe. He can't move, he can't speak - Levi's hand in his hair is a bright, brilliant point of pain and the rest of his body is melting into the mattress, just holding on for dear life while Levi lifts up and slams back down, over and over again. 

Erwin can't help the desperate little noises coming out of his mouth, gasps and little whimpers unlike anything he's ever done before, and Levi's sweating and blushing and smirking at him and it's - it's all too much. 

He reaches forward for Levi, runs his hands up his back feverishly, and gasps, "Levi, fuck, Jesus Christ, fucking -"

Levi takes his hand off Erwin's throat and shoves two fingers into Erwin’s mouth, grip still painfully tight in his hair. 

Levi slows, leans forward and shudders at the way Erwin's cock shifts inside him, and speaks straight into his ear. 

"When I said 'fuck me,'" he whispers, hips still moving in devastating circles, sweat rolling down his beautiful neck, "I meant like this." 

He lifts almost all the way off and slams back down again, and Erwin's voice cracks as he moans around Levi's fingers.

Levi gasps and then says, "Like you  _ mean _ it, see?"

Erwin nods, ears ringing. He's drooling around Levi's fingers and moaning like a whore, and Levi looks absolutely devastating sitting on his cock like this. 

There is a flash of Levi riding his cock just like this in an apartment in New York, sun spilling brilliantly through the window and lighting Levi's eyes like mercury. 

In Paris, Levi pulls his head to the side again and hisses, "Erwin."

Erwin looks at him, mouth slack. Levi looks entirely too put together. 

"You are  _ here _ ," Levi says, expression intense. "You are here with me. Now. That’s all, do you understand?"

Erwin nods, flips them again. The little gasp of surprise Levi makes when Erwin gets him on his back will haunt him until he dies. 

"I understand," Erwin says in a low voice, and then folds Levi's legs up until his feet touch his ears. He finds his prostate so easily it seems unreal, and the sound Levi makes goes straight to Erwin's cock so fast his movements stutter for a moment. 

They both cease to speak after that. Erwin fucks him until Levi finally loses his composure, toes curling and mouth falling open,  nonsense words coming out of his mouth in little gasps. 

Levi gets impossibly tighter, skin even hotter, and he digs his fingernails into Erwin's shoulders so hard that Erwin can feel himself hurtling helplessly toward the edge. 

"Lev-"

Levi cuts him off with a kiss, desperate and hot and wet and all tongue and teeth, and Erwin knows what he means. 

He wraps a hand around Levi's cock - which has been painfully neglected - and pumps it once, twice before - 

" _ Oh _ my fucking-"

Erwin doesn't even know who says it because watching Levi come is the single most beautiful experience of his life. 

His eyes are shut and his mouth is wide open, and a high, beautiful sound comes out of him before he bites his lip so hard it turns white, spilling all over Erwin's hand and his stomach and his chest - 

He can't help it, he comes immediately after him, powerless to stop it, burying himself as deep as Levi will have him and groaning into the sweat-covered skin at the back of Levi's neck. 

For a long time, they don't speak. Erwin eases out and they both groan, then Levi lets out a breathless little laugh that makes Erwin's heart feel like it's going to explode in his chest. He pulls Levi against his chest and lays down, sighing and running fingers through his hair. 

Levi makes a face and finally speaks, voice gravelly and low. 

"We need a shower."

Erwin grunts in response and tightens his hold on Levi. They're asleep before Levi has time to protest.    
  


 

They go for breakfast in the morning, navigating around each other with such a quiet, practiced intimacy that it feels like they’ve lived together all their lives. 

They don’t touch, on the walk there. They don’t hold hands. But their feet land at precisely the same moment, every step, and Erwin feels he might die from it. 

The cook behind the counter calls out, "Ackerman," and hands them their sandwiches. Levi nods at him and takes them, handing Erwin his. 

Erwin cocks his head as he unwraps it. "Why does everyone call you that?"

Levi shrugs, shoving the whole sandwich in his mouth. He opens the door and holds it impatiently, and Erwin figures that's the end of it. 

After a few minutes of silence, Levi speaks. 

"When you die," he says, voice low and eyes in front of him while he walks, "you always say my name. Levi. It's the last thing you say."

Erwin has only seen himself die one time, and he does not remember this. His eyes are on the side of Levi's face.

Levi seems intent on not looking in Erwin's direction. 

"Once I started dreaming that," he continues, "I - I didn't want to hear anyone else say it." Levi's voice gets so quiet Erwin can barely hear when he says, "It's for you. My name."

Erwin stops, pulls Levi into a narrow  side street and kisses him until the ache in his chest subsides. He puts his hands on either side of Levi's neck, and his fingers overlap at the back of Levi's head. 

"Levi."

Levi closes his eyes, expression caught between pain and heartbreaking relief. Erwin runs a thumb over the sharp line of Levi's cheekbone, brushes the hair back out of his eyes. 

" _ Levi _ ," he says again, and there is so much in it. Levi shudders, takes a breath. When he opens his eyes they are wet, and he blinks and looks away, clearing his throat. 

He knows, eventually, that he will be able to tell Levi everything - but not yet. He’s in no hurry. 

They have the rest of their lives, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please tell me if you enjoyed it i've never written for these dummies before and i love them


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue from Levi's POV, because it wouldn't let me go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this is it i swear. i'm sorry but apparently i needed a hundred happy endings to sort out my own feelings please forgive me  
> more notes at bottom

Five.

Levi finds himself counting down, cognizant of the seconds passing in a way that frightens him, like a rabbit pricking its ears. He does not understand, but cannot help the humming awareness in the tendons of his hands, the pads of his fingers. Something is happening. He feels the way he imagines the leaves of trees must feel, before they turn upside down in anticipation of rain.

Four.

Paris is dark, quiet. Levi is reading, has reread the same sentence eight times now. _Nous ne sommes nous qu'aux yeux des autres et c'est à partir du regard des autres que nous nous assumons comme nous-mêmes_ _._ He cannot keep his eyes on the page – they keep sliding inexorably to the turquoise on his bedside table, as if it will cease to exist if he stops looking at it. _Nous ne sommes nous qu'aux yeux des autres et c'est à partir du regard des autres que nous nous assumons comme nous-mêmes_ _._ It pulls at him, behind his eyes, seems to settle inside him, and every time Levi looks at it he is filled with such an unbearable nostalgic melancholy that his heart seizes in his chest.

Three.

Sartre again. Levi reaches forward, touches the words on the page. The stone, still on the bedside table, so close to the pillow where he sleeps, seems almost to be reaching for him. He feels that his entire soul has been flung painfully into the past, and that his body is hanging on by a thread, stretched out and hollow. Like he hardly exists at all.

Two.

Outside. Levi needs to go outside. He gets up, means to head toward the door, but finds himself standing in front of the turquoise as if in a trance. He brushes his fingers over it, feels a strange sort of jolt, like he is speeding toward a fixed object. There is something terrible in his stomach when he touches it, a rush of fear and awareness – of himself, of something else. Of the fact that they may be the same.

One.

He pushes the door open, steps into the cold air. The streetlight is soft and yellow, warm, liquid. There is someone arguing down the street. A man walks toward him and Levi’s entire world narrows to nothing but the pounding of his own heart, which did not seem to exist until now. _Nous ne sommes nous qu'aux yeux des autres et c'est à partir du -_

The man looks at him, speaks. Or perhaps Levi speaks. It is impossible for Levi to decipher who is speaking, whose heart is beating. Where he is, _who_ he is.

Erwin.

The second he says the name something violent blooms in the center of his chest, like a strangling vine. He knows, instinctively, that if he looks away from Erwin now he will blink out of existence like a faulty light bulb. That perhaps they both will. _Please_ , he thinks, the desperation of it knocking the wind out of him, _Please keep looking at me._  

A long while later, Erwin turns to him in bed and touches his temple, spreading color into the world in a way that is so singular that Levi feels himself dying just watching it.  

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, voice so soft. Still, Levi knows that the air touching Erwin’s lips must have been born only to catch that voice.

He cannot say, _I’m thinking that if you look away, I will disappear._ And he cannot say, _I’m thinking that we were so made for each other that we can't exist without touching._

So instead he shrugs, looks at the peeling paint of the ceiling and says the only honest thing he can say: “Quanta.”

Erwin turns to him, big hands tracing Levi's collarbone softly, almost dangerously. As if he could snap it in one move.

"Quanta?"

"Mm."

Erwin shifts, reluctant to let go of him. He is so warm. Levi realizes he has been shivering most of his life, and that he is not shivering now.

"Oh," Erwin says, almost to himself, and Levi feels the edges of his lips curl. Of course Erwin understands.

"QED?" Erwin asks, terribly astute, while Levi presses into him and looks at the ceiling. Levi nods, hums again. He is sticky, but it's so late and he is so tired and it can wait, it can wait.

It's the grey, lazy pocket of the early morning where he always wakes, in between dreams, for a few minutes. Erwin seems to have woken at the same moment.

Of course Erwin is the same. Of course.

Erwin's warm, achingly familiar smell is seeping into Levi's sheets. He can't imagine ever shivering again. He feels he will burst into flame from the heat of another body so close to him, and yet makes no move to distance himself.

He curls closer, even, rests a hand against Erwin's chest and feels the steady beat of his heart.

"You're thinking about how quanta only exist when interacting with one another," Erwin says, and it's not a question.

Levi nods, knows Erwin will feel the movement where his head rests on Erwin's warm, comforting shoulder.

"I see."

And he does, Levi knows.

Quietly, Erwin says, "So am I."

He tightens his hold on Levi, pulls him nearly all the way on top of him, runs hands down the overheated skin of Levi's naked back.

Levi wonders if they are dreaming now, but decides that if they never wake, it doesn't matter.

_I would die if you left me now_ , he thinks, and he knows Erwin feels the same. Instead he says, "Move over, I'm falling off."

Erwin looks past him at the edge of the bed and snorts.

"You've got at least a foot of space."

"Liar."

Erwin's arms tighten around Levi again and he hauls Levi's whole body on top of himself, so Erwin is the only one touching the bed. Levi huffs, then decides he's too tired to fight for it and simply lays his head on Erwin's chest.

Erwin's not a bad bed. Warm, solid. Safe. The steady rise and fall of his chest is perfectly in sync with Levi's.

He's never been so close to someone before. It feels like he might just melt into Erwin and disappear. He settles one of his knees onto the bed between Erwin's legs.

"This is nice," Erwin says quietly, then tightens his arms circled around Levi like he's afraid he's scared him away. Levi pushes his face against Erwin's chest and says, muffled, "Go back to sleep."

"Mm."

He's just drifting off again when Erwin's voice floats through the dark, so soft Levi can hardly hear it.

"What do you think we'll dream now?"

Levi shrugs, suddenly terrified of seeing Erwin die in his dreams again after he's had this.

Erwin starts running fingers down Levi's back again, gentle and almost exploratory. His knuckles bump each vertebrae on their way down Levi's spine.

He sighs, "Levi," as if he's telling Levi everything, and it's the last thing said between them before they slip almost simultaneously into sleep, limbs tangled together.   


It's a cabin, teetering on the edge of a great grey sea.

Levi has only seen it once before, earlier that night, when Erwin had fucked him and he'd smelled the rain rolling off the water, seen them inside the cabin.

Warm, safe.

Happy.

He's never dreamt of this. His dreams are almost exclusively of death.

He's alone, standing barefoot on the porch wearing what he's fairly certain is Erwin's shirt, holding a mug of tea and watching the waves. The ocean is grey and the air is cold, so that the wind makes his eyes water and floor of the porch bites at the skin of his feet.  But his hands around the mug are warm and there's a warm flush still on his cheeks, as if he's just stepped outside.

The bottom of Levi's chest feels so light he is afraid he might float away, and it takes a moment to realize that the feeling is the absence of fear.

The porch is cozy, with a couch and a swing and a lot of blankets, candles burned down to nothing, wax spilled on the tables. The early morning sun is rising to Levi's left, warm and orange on the side of his face, and he has no idea where he is.

He stands for longer than he means to, steam floating up out of his tea and out onto the wind, toes cold and chest warm.

From inside the house, through the cracked-open door, comes Erwin's unmistakable voice, "Baby?"

Levi's stomach drops. He turns, drawn like a magnet.

Erwin's voice is warm and sleepy. "At least put some socks on," he says, muffled, and Levi feels himself smiling so easily it shocks him. The door creaks when he pushes it open, inevitably rusted from the wind off the water.

The living room is quiet and dark, though the lights on the Christmas tree in the corner blink almost lazily at him.

There are presents under it, more than Levi expects.

The window of their bedroom is open, and Levi follows the sound of the ocean.

Erwin has yet to get out of bed, and his hair is longer than Levi has ever seen it, curling under his ears and turning a stunning silver-blonde at his temples. He smiles sleepily at Levi when he sees him, and his eyes nearly close all the way.

Levi thinks he has never felt anything so good in his life, and then a tiny head of strawberry blonde hair peeks out from under the covers.

Her eyes are bright and beautiful and so happy and Levi feels his entire life stopping just looking at her. Her hair is sticking up in all directions, much too short for her pigtails, and she holds out a box wrapped very poorly in newspaper.

"Merry Christmas, Daddy!" she says, and her voice shatters his heart and puts it back together.

Erwin puts his hand on her head and says in a soft voice, "And?"

Levi's daughter looks around the room, clearly deep in thought. There are bells on her sweater. She can't be older than four.

Finally her face lights up and she says, "And happy birthday!"

Levi's face cracks down the middle and he's never smiled like this in his life. He goes to the bed and sits down and she climbs into his lap, still talking so fast she keeps having to pause for breath in the middle.

"Papa says this is an extra special day because -" she takes a huge gulp of air and settles into Levi's lap, "it’s Christmas and it's your birthday and since it's the day you." She pauses and takes a huge breath again, winded by so much excitement. "The day you potted me it should be my birthday too because papa doesn't know when my other birthday is so- " gulp of air - "we get to share now!"

Levi meets Erwin's eyes and they are warm and blue and smiling.

"Potted?" He manages, voice wavering. He is at a loss for any other words.

Over the girl's head Erwin says, "We haven't learned the word 'adopted' yet."

The girl touches Levi's face and her hands are so small. Levi thinks his hands are shaking. He puts his arms around her anyway, leans back against Erwin's chest.

"Your face looks weird, Daddy."

Erwin says, "Isabel, that's not nice," but then he looks at Levi and frowns.

"Baby, are you alright?" He asks, and again Levi feels a shock of warmth through his chest. _Baby_.

"I -"

He doesn't know what to say, and the ocean pounds at the shore, and the cold salt wind comes through the window and raises goosebumps on Erwin's arm, and their daughter, their _daughter_ looks up at him and declares, "Daddy is a different Daddy today."

Levi's eyes are wet before he realizes it.

Erwin makes a noise and reaches for him.

"Dreaming?" Erwin asks, soft and unbearably affectionate, and never in Levi's entire life has he heard such unbridled tenderness from anyone.

He nods, throat tight and eyes still wet.

“Come here,” Erwin says, and then Levi is settling next to him, leaning against the headboard with Isabel in his lap and the warm weight of Erwin’s presence pressed against his side.

Erwin wordlessly leans over and kisses the side of Levi’s head, then their daughter’s, and the hard knot of disbelieving anxiety loosens in his chest.

Isabel falls asleep, faster than Levi would have imagined with the promise of Christmas presents so close by, and she’s drooling on Levi’s shirt where she’s leaned against his chest. Levi feels like he could end the world with the force of his love for her.

“Are you happy?” Levi asks, softly, before he can stop himself. He notices that his own voice is different.

Erwin looks out the window, still slightly open. He makes a soft sound.

“Always,” he says, and his skin is so warm in the chill of the air. Levi can feel the cold salt on the side of his face. This Erwin, he knows instinctively, always smells of the endless grey sea. “Always.”

Levi settles further against Erwin’s body, thinks of the Erwin in his apartment in Paris, the one who he’s probably tangled legs with at this very moment. Thinks of how he will wake and see him, touch him, speak to him. Thinks of how he will never have to look away from his face for the rest of his life.

Then he thinks of how he will never have to look away from his face again for _any_ of his lives, and runs his fingers gently through their daughter’s hair and listens to the pounding of the waves against their little house and breathes.

He thinks, when he wakes, that he will take _his_ Erwin to see his city. That he will leave this Erwin and their beautiful child to the other Levi, the one who remembered all his past lives, the one who found Erwin so early, the one who built this cabin. They will be in good hands, with him.

He thinks, finally, that it is time to stop dreaming, and resolves to kiss Erwin when he wakes, morning breath and all.

“Me too,” he says to Erwin, and means it.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who knew i compulsively needed such sickening sweetness in my writing. sorry.  
> um so the french is a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre (one of my dramatic existentialist faves) and ties into the quantum mechanics thing (which, i know, is a HUGE over simplification and everything, bear with me for the sake of narrative simplicity and metaphor) and basically is a quote on how we only exist in the eyes of another person.  
> a billion thanks, again, to Sili and El. love you guys so much.  
> love yall bye  
> francisthegreat.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest thank you of all time to @silivrenelya, who gave me lots of hugs and French lessons and is a spectacular human being, and @ellabesmirched, who sent me a lot of filthy fanart while i was at work.  
> love you all please come tell me what you think thanks bye


End file.
